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<td height="45" width="24">&nbsp;</td><td class="under" valign="middle" align="left" colspan="2"><span class="textcolor style1"><strong>Historical Statistics of the United States</strong></span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
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<td valign="top" rowspan="2"></td><td height="28" valign="middle" align="left" width="906"><span class="sans"><strong>Contributor:  </strong>Christopher Hanes</span></td><td valign="top" rowspan="2" width="29"></td>
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<span class="sans"><strong>Table Cc113-124&nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp;
	Wholesale price indexes, by commodity group: 1749&ndash;1890 [Warren and Pearson]
	
	
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<td valign="top" width="25">&nbsp;</td><td class="topline" valign="middle" height="40"><strong class="sans">Sources</strong></td><td valign="top" width="25">&nbsp;</td>
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<div align="left">George F. Warren and Frank A. Pearson, &ldquo;Wholesale Prices for 213 Years, 1720 to 1932,&rdquo; Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station Memoir number 142 (November 1932), pp. 7&ndash;10 and 84&ndash;111.  The indexes are also presented in George F. Warren and Frank A. Pearson, <i>Prices</i> (Wiley, 1933).</div>
	
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<td valign="top" width="25">&nbsp;</td><td class="topline" valign="middle" height="42"><strong class="sans">Documentation</strong></td><td valign="top" width="25">&nbsp;</td>
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<td valign="top" width="25">&nbsp;</td><td class="Pincrease" valign="top">
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<div align="left">The index numbers are annual averages of monthly figures, with the average value over 1910&ndash;1914 = 100.</div>
		
<div style="text-indent:20px;text-align:left">Warren and Pearson constructed indexes for the period 1797&ndash;1890.  Series for years before 1797 were created by Herman M. Stoker.</div>
		
<div style="text-indent:20px;text-align:left">Commodity groups correspond to those used by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) before the 1952 overhaul of the wholesale price index program &ndash; that is, the groups for the indexes presented in Table Cc84&ndash;95.  Warren and Pearson also constructed a price index for spirits.  The bulk of the prices comprised by the indexes relate to New York City and were obtained from newspapers, supplemented with prices published in the <i>Report of the Secretary of the Treasury on the State of the Finances</i> (usually referred to as the U.S. Finance Report) for 1863.</div>
		
<div style="text-indent:20px;text-align:left">The index numbers for 1797&ndash;1890 are weighted arithmetic averages of relatives, computed first on an 1876&ndash;1891 base and then linked to the BLS index numbers for corresponding commodity groups (Table Cc84&ndash;95) and converted to a base where the average value of the linked series is 100 over the period 1910&ndash;1914.  The number of commodities included in the all-commodities index varies from a low of 113 in 1830 to 146 in 1880.  When one commodity was substituted for another, a linking procedure was employed.  Two all-commodity indexes were prepared from the commodity group indexes: one with fixed group weights and one with group weights that vary over time.  The latter is presented here.  <i>Within</i> each group, weights change over time and were meant to reflect the relative importance of commodities in the trade of the United States, as indicated by censuses, imports, exports, and similar official figures.  Such information was meager for early years, and so some arbitrary weight assignments were necessary.  Specific mention should be made of the reduction in the importance of cotton during the years of the Civil War.  In this period, cotton was scarce and prices very high, and so weights were based on the amount available for consumption for 1861&ndash;1866 and on production for 1867&ndash;1871.</div>
		
<div style="text-indent:20px;text-align:left">In attempting to extend the series to years before 1797, Stoker encountered serious gaps in source materials.  Over 1783&ndash;1796, prices for seventy-one commodities were available for most years, and Stoker could use the same commodity group classifications and methods of calculation as those employed by Warren and Pearson.  For 1749&ndash;1781, Stoker found continuous series for only eleven to nineteen items, nearly all farm products and foods.  The all-commodities index for 1749&ndash;1781 is based on that small set of prices.  Series covering scattered months over 1720&ndash;1748 are given in the source.</div>
	
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<td valign="top" width="25">&nbsp;</td><td class="topline" valign="middle" height="42"><strong class="sans">Citation</strong></td><td valign="top" width="25">&nbsp;</td>
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<td valign="top" width="25">&nbsp;</td><td class="Pincrease" valign="top">
<div class="sans" align="left">Hanes, Christopher , &ldquo;
	Wholesale price indexes, by commodity group: 1749&ndash;1890 [Warren and Pearson]
	
	
	.&rdquo;&nbsp;Table Cc113-124 in <i>Historical Statistics of the United States, Earliest Times to the Present: Millennial Edition,</i> edited by Susan B. Carter, Scott Sigmund Gartner, Michael R. Haines, Alan L. Olmstead, Richard Sutch, and Gavin Wright. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/ISBN-9780511132971.Cc66-20410.1017/ISBN-9780511132971.Cc66-204</div>
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<td valign="top" height="30" width="24">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td class="topline" valign="middle" align="center" width="100%"><span class="sans"><font color="#000000">Copyright 2006 - Cambridge University Press, All Rights Reserved.</font></span></td><td valign="top" width="24">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
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